Page 31 of Squad Ghouls

The bag with my new shorts in slung over his wrist, Ryan trailed after me, his chest a bit puffed after our conversation. We stopped at the booth with homemade creams and lotions and I counted in my head how much money I had put aside for this.

“Already out?” Mitch asked, pulling an already packed bag from the little storage box in his booth and handing it to me. “Lot of surface to cover,” I said, and he gave me a salacious grin.

“I can see that.” He leaned over the booth and peeked around me. “Is it working, at least?”

“Not sure,” I said. I put the bag back on the table and rolled the loose hem of my shorts higher, jutting my hip out to show him. “What do you think?”

He leaned closer, gripping my hip to turn me toward the sun and squinting his green eyes.

“I think it’s made them a bit lighter?” he said, but I could hear he wasn’t entirely certain.

“What are you doing?” Ryan asked, all of his previous good mood gone again. He put himself between me and Mitch, blocking his view.

Oh yeah. He didn’t want anyone else looking. Which was a conundrum.

I didn’t think Ryan would do anything but grumble and pout about it if I wanted to show Mitch, but I didn’t actually want to make him grumble and pout.

So maybe Ryan could let me know? Weirdly, that answer felt more comfortable than showing the person I had known for longer.

I turned to him, a little nervous and shy, and rolled my shorts up more, exposing the skin over my hip and the side of my bum. “I have stretch marks. Like, a lot of them. Mitch has been making me this lotion to try and get rid of them. I’m on my third pot and I can’t tell if it’s working. See?”

He stared at me. Not at my bum, my face. Just…silent and focused, his eyes blown wide.

“Get rid of them?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “I don’t have them anywhere else, just my, like…sides and hips and bum, and it’s not…it’s not very nice to look at.”

“Not very…” His eyes finally dropped to where I was still holding my hem rolled up. He bit his lip and reached a finger out, hesitating for a split second before touching the tip of it to the start of one of the pale lines on my side.

He traced the length of it, gentle and slow, his finger cool against my bare skin. I had to stop myself from moaning but I also, weirdly, wanted to pull away. It was intimate. More intimate than anything I had ever done with anyone else.

“Ryan…” I said slowly. “Could you not do that?”

He pulled his finger away instantly but still asked, “Why?”

“Well, I kinda want you to keep liking my bum like you said before, and these…” I trailed off, blushing a little in embarrassment.

“Are so hot,” he finished for me and my breath caught as I stared at him in dazed amazement and disbelief. “Don’t buy that. Don’t get rid of those.”

“But—”

“Leave it.” He plucked the bag out of my hands and gave it back to Mitch. “He won’t need this.”

I leaned around him to apologise to Mitch, but he was smiling at Ryan, nodding in approval.

“Tried to tell him we arse men don’t mind those stripes,” Mitch said.

Ryan scowled. “Find another arse to be the man of.”

I was light-headed as Ryan marched me out of the booth, unable to stop myself from staring at the side of Ryan’s beautiful face.

“Okay, so we’ve been here for over an hour now,” he said, voice gruff. “We have no jam, no pecans, and no flour.”

“Right.” I nodded sharply.

“What we do have is an arse-worshipping club and potential assault charges on my record.”

“I don’t think two people constitute a club,” I said sagely.